John S. Farmer

“ Shadwell is of opinion, that your bully, with his box and his false dice, is an honester fellow than the rhetorical author, who makes use of his tropes and figures, which are his high and his low runners, to cheat us at once of our money and of our intellectuals. ”

“ The Americans were so harassed by the Brigade that they vowed "No Quarter." In derision, to prevent mistakes, The Light Battalion dyed their feathers red: the 46th Foot alone has retained the distinction. ”

“ To kill the goose for the golden eggs, verb. phr. (colloquial) .—To grasp at more than is due; to over-reach oneself. (From the Greek fable.)
Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high, phr. See Everything.
He’ll be a man among the geese when the gander is gone, phr. (old) .—Ironical; = ‘He’ll be a man before his mother.’
Go! shoe the goose, phr. (old) .—A retort, derisive or incredulous = the modern ‘To hell and pump thunder.’
Unable to say boh! to a goose, phr. (colloquial) .—Said of a bashful person.—Grose. ”

“ That fellowes pocket is like a tailors hell, it eats up part of every mans due; ’tis an executioner, and makes away more innocent petitions in one yeere, than a red-headed hangman cuts ropes in an age. ”

“ At Mangalore (1783) against Tippoo Sahib, and side by side with the senior battalion at Waterloo, in the Netherlands, in the Indian Mutiny, and in the Kaffir wars of 1846-53, it has worthily sustained the undying fame of the regiment. Recent events in South Africa show that neither the officers nor the men of to-day have lost one iota of that traditional dash, determination, and bravery which have won for the Black Watch so glorious a place in British military annals. ”

“ If theatre managers would only give the public the chance of as good a seat as can be got at the Trocadero or the Pavilion, at the same price, and manage the ventilation of their houses so as not to bake the gods and freeze the ‘pitites,’ I venture to think that fewer people would go to the music halls. ”

“ English Synonyms.—To bam; to bamblustercate; to bamboozle; to bambosh; to barney; to be on the job; to best; to bilk; to blarney; to blow; to bosh; to bounce; to cob; to cod; to cog; to chaff; to come over (or the artful, or Paddy, or the old soldier over) one; to cram; to do; to do brown; to doctor; to do Taffy; to fake the kidment; to flare up; to flam; to flummox; to get at (round, or to windward of) one; to gild the pill; to give a cock’s egg; to gravel; to gull; to haze; to jimmify; to jaw; to jockey; to jolly; to kid; to make believe the moon is made of green cheese (Cotgrave) ; to mogue ”

“ The combined battle-roll of honour is much the same as that of the Black Watch and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. "Assaye" (in 1803) was specially recognised by the Honourable East India Company presenting honorary colours to the late 78th (2nd Batt.) . Half a century later, during the Mutiny, it rendered unparalleled service under Havelock, Outram, and Clive, adding "Lucknow" to the Colours, while its achievements in "Central India," "Afghanistan," "Kabul," "Kandahar," "Egypt," and "Tel-el-Kebir" are well within living memory. ”

“ A made-flyer is when the bound of the ball is gained from a previous kick, by the same side, against canvas or any other obstacle, or is dropped, as in a ‘drop-kick.’ This is now confused with a ‘kick-up.’
Fly-flapped, adj. (obsolete) .—Whipped in the stocks, or at the cart’s tail.—Grose.
Fly-Flapper, subs. (old) .—A heavy bludgeon.
Fly-flat, subs. (turf) .—A would-be connoisseur and authority. [From fly = knowing + flat = a fool.]
Flying.—To look as if the Devil had shit him (or her) flying (common and proverbial) .—Said in derision of one odd-looking, filthy, or deformed. ”

“ Gilded Rooster, subs. phr. (American) .—A man of importance; a howling swell (q.v.) ; sometimes the gilded rooster on the top of the steeple. Cf., big-bug; big dog of the tanyard, etc.
1888. New York Herald. We admit that as a metropolis Chicago is the gilded rooster on top of the steeple, but even gilded roosters have no right to the whole corn bin.
Gilderoy’s Kite. To be hung higher than gilderoy’s kite, verb. phr. (old) .—To be punished more severely than the very worst criminals. ‘The greater the crime the higher the gallows’ was at one time a practical legal axiom. ”

“ An Irish tailor who has had a slight dispute with his wife the night before, and has corporeally chastised her with a hot goose—a tailor’s goose, be it understood—to the extent of all but fracturing her skull. ”

“ To take a flier (American trade) .—1. To make a venture; to invest against odds.
2. (venery) .—To copulate in haste (Grose) ; to do a Fast-fuck (q.v.) .
Flies, subs. (rhyming) .—Lies. Hence, nonsense; trickery; deceit.
There are no flies on me, on him, etc., phr. (common) .—‘I am dealing honestly with you;’ ‘he is genuine, and is not humbugging.’ In America, the expression is used of (1) a man of quick parts, a man who ‘knows a thing without its being kicked into him by a mule’; and (2) a person of superior breeding or descent. Sometimes the phrase is corrupted into ‘no fleas.’ See Gammon. ”

“ To fly off the handle, verb. phr. (American pioneer) .—To lose temper; to fail of a promise; to jilt; to die; also to slip off the handle (q.v.) ; to disappoint in any way. [In pioneer life for an axe to part company with its handle is a serious trial to temper and patience.]
1843–4. Haliburton, The Attaché. You never see such a crotchical old critter as he is. He flies right off the handle for nothing. ”

“ To horse a man, is for one of two men who are engaged on precisely similar pieces of work to make extraordinary exertions in order to work down the other man. This is sometimes done simply to see what kind of a workman a new man may be, but often with the much less creditable motive of injuring a fellow workman in the estimation of an employer.
The gray mare is the better horse. ”

“ For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
1596. Sir J. Davies, Book of Epigrams. A gull is he who feares a velvet gowne, And when a wench is brave dares not speak to her; A gull is he which traverseth the towne, And is for marriage known a common wooer; A gull is he, which while he proudly weares A silver-hilted rapier by his side. Indures the lye and knockes about the eares, While in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide. But to define a gull in termes precise—A gull is he which seems, and is not, wise.
1598. Florio, A World of Wordes, passim. ”

“ Faire une gaffe, in modern Parisian slang, may be best rendered as to put your foot in it.
To have one foot (or leg) in the grave, verb. phr. (common) .—On one’s last legs; measured for a funeral sermon. Also as adj.
1825. English Spy, i., pp. 199–200. With one leg in the grave he’ll laugh.
1890. Globe, 15 May, p. 5, col. 2. One-foot-in-the-grave paralytic sort of people.
To pull foot, verb. phr. (American) .—To make haste. Variants are to take one’s foot in one’s hand, and to make tracks; but for synonyms, see Absquatulate and Skedaddle. ”

“ For synonyms, see jemmy.
To put a churl (or beggar) upon a gentleman, verb. phr. (old) .—To drink malt liquor immediately after wine.—Grose.
Gentleman of the (Three, or Four, or Five) Outs (or Ins) , subs. phr. (old) .—A [131] varying and ancient wheeze, of which the following are representative:—
Out of money, and out of clothes; Out at the heels, and out at the toes; Out of credit, and in debt.
A man in debt, in danger, and in poverty; or in gaol, indicted, and in danger of being hanged.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. ”

“ Men talk of high and low dice.
High-nosed, adj. phr. (colloquial) .—Very proud in look and in fact; supercilious in bearing and speech; superior (q.v.) .
High- [or gay-] old (time, game, liar, etc.) , adj. phr. (common) .—A general intensitive: e.g., high old time = a very merry time indeed; high old liar = a liar of might; high old drunk = an uncommon booze (q.v.) ”

“ English Synonyms.—To bob; to box the Jesuit [‘St. Omer’s lewdness,’ Marston, [74] ‘Scourge’ (1598) ] ; to chuff; to chuffer; to claw (Florio) ; to digitate (of women) ; to eat (or get) cock-roaches; to bring up (or off) by hand; to fight one’s turkey (Texan) ; to finger or finger-fuck (of women) ; to friggle (Florio) ; to fuck one’s fist (of men) ; to fetch mettle (Grose) ; to handle; to indorse; to jerk, play, pump, toss, or work off; to lark; to milk; to mount a corporal and four; to mess, or pull about; to play with (schoolboys’) , to rub up; to shag; to tickle one’s crack (of women) ”

“ Other colloquial usages are at heart = in reality, truly, at bottom; for one’s heart = for one’s life; in one’s heart of hearts = in the inmost recesses of oneself; to break the heart of = (a) to cause great grief, or to kill by grief, and (b) to bring nearly to completion; to find in one’s heart = to be willing; to get or learn by heart = to commit to memory; to have at heart = to feel strongly about; to have in the heart = to design or to intend; to lay or take to heart = to be concerned or anxious about; to set the heart at rest = to tranquilize ”

“ To hop the twig ... and the like, are more flippant than humorous.
2. (common) .—To die; to ‘kick the bucket’ (q.v.) ; to peg out (q.v.) . Also To hop off.
English Synonyms. To be content; to cock up one’s toes; to croak; to cut (or let go) the painter; to cut one’s stick; to give in; to give up; to go to Davy Jones’ locker; to go off the hooks; to go under; to go up; to kick the bucket; kickeraboo (West Indian) ; to lay down one’s knife and fork; to lose the member of one’s mess; to mizzle; to pass in one’s checks; to peg out; to put on a wooden surtout; to be put to bed with a shovel ”

“ Half-snags is a corrupted form of half snacks, i.e., half shares. If one of a party of arabs finds any article it becomes his entire property unless his fellows say Half-Snags, or ‘Quarter-bits,’ or ‘Some for your neighbours.’
Half-’un, subs. (common) .—Half-a-glass of spirits and water; Half-a-Go (q.v.) .
Half-widow, subs. (American) .—A woman with a lazy and thriftless husband.
[For Half in combination, see also Bean: Borde; Bull; Case: Century; Couter; Dollar; George; Go; Grunter; Hog; Jack; James; Ned; Ounce; Quid; Skiv; Stretch; Tusheroon; Wheel.]
Halifax. Go to Halifax, verb. phr. ”

“ You flymy titters fond of flam.
Fly-my-kite, subs. phr. (rhyming) .—A light.
Flymy-mess, to be in a flymy-mess, verb. phr. (military) .—To be hungry and have nothing to eat. For synonyms, see peckish.
Fly-slicer, subs. (common) .—A cavalry-man: cf., Mudcrusher. French lancers are allumeurs de gaz, their weapons being likened to a lamplighter’s rod. [47]
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Fly-slicers: Life-guardmen, from their sitting on horseback, under an arch, where they are frequently observed to drive away flies with their swords.
Fly the Garter, subs. phr. ”

“ Flesh, verb., or, Flesh It; or, to be fleshed in (venery) .—To have carnal knowledge of—to be ‘one flesh with’—a woman. [For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.] An equivalent in the passive sense is to feel his flesh in one’s body (said by women only) .
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Andar in Carnafau. To go a fleshing or a wenching: (Carnafau = the brat-getting place; the hole of content) .
Flesh and Blood, subs. phr. (common) .—Brandy and port in equal proportions. ”

“ The indignant settler who has been ill-treated, as he fancies, in court, denounces his attorney as a ‘miserable, one-horse lawyer;’ and the Yankee newly arrived in England does not hesitate to declare that ‘Liverpool is a poor one-horse kind of a place,’ a term applied by Mark Twain to no less a city than Rome itself ”

“ New York Sun (quoted in Slang, Jargon, and Cant, s.v.) . ‘What do you think he had the gall to do to-day?’ Brown: ‘He has the gall to do anything.’ Dumley: ‘He asked me to drink with him; but he’ll never repeat the impudence.’
Gallant, subs. (old) .—A dandy (q.v.) ; a ladies’ man; a lover; a cuckold-maker, whether in posse or in esse (Shakspeare) .
1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives, ii. One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant!
1598. Shakspeare, 1 Henry IV., ii., 4. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you. ”